How to Party With an Infant Read Free Page A

my four-poster bed I’d inhale the scent of tiare through the wooden jalousies, then I’d walk to the kitchen, where a woman named Lehua would be making me breakfast, both of us ashamed and feeling sorry for one another.
    My stepdad is an overdeveloper on Oahu. He has a Tesla and chest hair. Howard. He purports that his buildings reflect the Hawaiian spirit, but imports everything from Italy and caters to high-end Chinese. If there’s any Hawaiian spirit it’s because the buildings probably sit on ancient burial grounds.
    My real dad (a kind of Hawaiian spirit) left when I was two, which was fine with my mom because all he did was fish and smoke pot. She needed essentials like a BMW and white leather pants. She was twenty-one and over the slumming-it stage.
    He called me on some birthdays—my eighth, tenth, and thirteenth. Since age six I have only seen him twice. He’s like a whale that way. Our conversations were very abbreviated, for me because I didn’t know what to say; for him because he spoke pidgin English. I recall very little (though there is little to recall):
Him: What grade you in now?
Me: Third.
Cut to two years later.
Him: Did you get da kine jean jacket I sent?
Me: Yes. But it’s a size five. It’s like a crop top. We can’t show our midriffs in school, and I wouldn’t want to anyway.
Three years later.
Him: What grade you stay?
Me: Seventh.
Him: Shoots. I’ll send you some Yellowman CDs. You like ’em.
Me: Can I visit?
Him: Nah.
Me: Why not?
Him: Uh . . . we remodeling, das why.
    End scene. That’s it. I’m done with those chapters. Ellie is my family. I think of my mom and stepdad as sponsors. I will wear their clothes, advertising from a distance that they’re a decent company.
    I used to work for a place called Wheelbarrows, where I’d make and deliver meals to people who could afford not to cook. I was also a menu consultant. Now Ellie is my job and I still have my recipe blog, which pays fairly well with sponsors like Tyson chicken, Epicurious, Whine and Dine, and Freecreditscore.com.
    If you read the directions in the posted recipes you’ll notice I’ll slipin little anecdotes about my day, my interactions with other moms and the things I’ve overheard. For example, yesterday at SF Gymnastics I overheard a conversation where mothers were offering advice to a mom whose baby was so cute everyone wanted to touch her and she needed ways to politely say no.
    One mother offered this advice: “People who touch babies are creepy. Everyone wanted to touch Janey, especially when she was neutropenic and had no white cells. This made her look like an ivory doll and strangers just pawed at her. Tell them to back off, or to touch her toes.”
    Another said this: “It’s because there are no children here. They’re like Birkin bags. I’d just avoid crowded public places and neighborhoods like the Mission with high immigrant populations.”
    The last mom contributed this: “My daughter gets touched all the time. It’s what happens when they’re pretty. The other day this bum-like person kept trying to remove her hand socks and smell her! And she’s an old people magnet. I keep antibacterial wipes ready and wipe her hands immediately after contact with anyone. Even the nonelderly.”
    You can find this exchange under “Ancho Chili Steaks.” I could add that to my list of hobbies: overhearing. I listen to everything. It’s something to do when you’re at playgrounds or kid classes. I’ve heard some crazy things, said in the most earnest way. People really care about stuff! My intention with these asides isn’t to be a mean girl, soaking in the candid chitchat then turning around and enlarging it for the sake of entertainment and enhanced self-worth . . . but sometimes that ends up happening. People like it though. I get comments like “Those women make me want to shoot myself” or “When people ask to touch my baby I just say, ‘She bites!’ Jesus Christ.”
    Or I get total